Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1918 — JAFFA the DORT of JERUSALEM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JAFFA the DORT of JERUSALEM

AFTER being In the undisputed control of the Moslems for 673 years, Jerusalem once again has come into the possession of the Christians, the Crescent has fallen and the Cross has replaced it. The decisive event of this “ninth crusade,” made by the British forces under General Allenby, was the capture of Jaffa, the chief port of Palestine. Jaffa, which is also written Yafa and Joppa, and which is supposed to have been named the city beautiful, as its Hebrew name implies, has a history so ancient that its foundation and its early history are entirely lost In the mistd of the past, writes Joseph Jackson in the Philadelphia Public Ledger. It is linked with the legends of Homer, with the commerce of the Phoenicians, with the mythology of the Greeks as well as with the story of the New and Old Testaments. Lying so close to Jerusalem, and for many years the real port of entry to that inland city, It has in recent years established a very modern reputation for business, which has nothing to do with its storied past. Even the country In which the old city is situated has had its name changed many times. The Greeks long before the time of Christ alluded to it as Ethiopia, later it was Canaan, and finally Palestine. It has been ruled by Phoenicians, by Greeks, by Egyptian Pharaohs, by Assyrian kings, by the Romans, the Saracens, the Jews, the Arab caliphs and the Turks, to say nothing of the tdmporary occupation by Christian emperors from Germany, France and England.

The city of Jaffa has been besieged and taken by every newcomer for the last forty centuries who has made the attempt on Jerusalem, but despite the fact that it often has been the scene of hostilities and that more than once its block-paved streets have run with human blood, and that once, at least, it was almost destroyed by an earthquake, the town never has ceased to be beautiful, with its hills surrounding itr to the southwest covered with fruit trees, and with its own quaint stone buildings, churches and mosques. Was Held by the Pharaohs. The Pharaohs of Egypt for a time included this ancient land in their empire, during the reigns of Thothmes HI and Amenhotep, say from about 1600 to 1400 B. C., although the Egyptian occupation seems to have lasted for quite three centuries. > On the porch on the great temple at Karnak there has been discovered references to the town of Ja-pu, and elsewhere in the land of Egypt there is a reference to Ya-pu, both being interpreted to mean Jaffa. It appears to have been the Promised Land of biblical times, and when this was distributed under Joshua, the country bordering the Mediterranean, in which Jaffa lies, was awaraded to the tribe of Dan. But the territory continued in the possession of the Philistines until the reign of David, when the Israelites came into their own.

During the time of Solomon, Jaffa played an important part, for it was there that the precious woods and metals which were brought from afar to make his temple the wonder of the world were unloaded from the puny Vessels that plied the Mediterranean. All of the materials that, were brought from afar entered Palestine at Jaffa and were transported overland to the hills on which the Holy City lies, where his great edifice was erected. When the Ten Tribes revolted Jaffa regained its independence, which had been denied it for centuries, but this freedom was scarcely enjoyed before Rammanlcar HI, the king of Assyria, fell upon it and once more it felt the yoke of foreign authority. If It'Were renowned for no other event, Jaffa must always be famed as the port from which Jonah sailed when he tried to hide from the Lord and attempted to neglect the Lord’s business. The town was once fired by the Boman governor of Syria, and its destruction, invited by the insurrection of the Jews, caused many of the latter to resort to thievery,'piracy and brigandage. More than 8,000 of them had been put to the sword,- and the remainder became outlaws.

Mecca fbr Pilgrims. Vespasian put a stop to this sort of thing by attacking -a band of the thieves, and massacring more than 4,000 of them. Then he built a fort and around this a new- city sprang up. Later for the first time Jaffa became

virtually a Christian city. It had been pagan and Jewish by turns, but now it was raised to a bishopric. Fidus was thq bishop, and he was present at the Synod of Lydda in 415 and at the Council of Ephesus in 431. It now became a place for pilgrims from Europe. For centuries they arrived and made their way to the Holy City. Many of them landed at Ces- , area, further up the coast, but the biblical traditions of Jaffa caused almost all of them to visit its picturesque walls. In the seventh century of our era the Arabs invaded the country and then began the reign of the Saracens and Turks, which has continued, with occasional periods of other occupation, until the present day. In all of the ejpht Crusades, which began in the eleventh century and continued Intermittently for 800 years, Jaffa was a prominent figure in the accounts. The Crusades were begun under the missidnary work of Peter the Hermit, a French monk, who, having visited Jerusalem, found that the pilgrims were unjustly treated by being taxed highly for admission to the city of their dreams, and that they were otherwise unjustly treated by the government

It was customary for most of the Crusaders to land at Acre, which, while further away from Jerusalem, seemed to offer a more direct route and a safer landing for the ships and galleys which brought the Knights Templar and Hospitallers. Jaffa became the advanced base for most of the operations against the Saracens and later the Turks at Jerusalem. Taken by Napoleon. Napoleon in his Egyptian campaign took the city of Jaffa, and it was there that it was declared that he left his soldiers to die of the plague, but he had his eye on posterity and had a picture painted depicting him in the convent of the Armenians going sympathetically among his stricken soldiers, whom his enemies declared he poisoned when he was about to leave. Mehemet All took the town in 1832, and the Arabs were evicted by the Turks, who took the town eight years later, although in the meantime it had been laid partly waste by an earthquake in 1838. The guide books will tell the modem pilgrim that he may still see the ruins of the house of Simon the tanner, now covered by a mosqque, and the pious may make the journey to that part of the town where the worthy Tabitha was raised by St. Peter. He may read on a signboard, “Tabitha’s Quarter,” but the exact spot where her house stood has hot been transmitted to this time. From a small town of about 10,000 population, the completion of the railroad to Jerusalem about twenty years ago caused the city to become important enough to boast of more than three times that number of inhabitants. The treacherous character of the entrance by sea to the town is likely to stand in the way of its future greatness, but as one of the oldest cities in the world it must always have a fascination for the curious.

Jaffa From the Sea.